Grimmauld
by Paris in December
Summary: At Grimmauld Place, Ron's thoughts wander as he's dusting in the library with Hermione. Written for the HPFC Missing Moments Competition. Implied Remus/Sirius. Chapters: 1/1. Demons' Redemption series.


**Author's Note:** Written for the Missing Moments Competition by RandomEternally on the HPFC forum. The prompt was "What Ron and Hermione were doing at Grimmauld Place, before Harry arrived."

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><p>Number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London: Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, Sirius Black's family home, and the most boring place in the world to be at the moment, at least according to one Ronald Weasley.<p>

It had been kind of cool when they first arrived, what with the yelling portrait of Sirius's ugly old mum, the creepy muttering house-elf, and the various dangerous Dark artifacts lying about. But then his own mum had gotten started on _cleaning_. The portrait became a point of irritation because it just wouldn't _shut up_. The house-elf, Kreacher, became a nuisance, not to mention he kept insulting everyone under his breath, as though they couldn't hear. And as for the Dark artifacts, they were just one more thing to deal with during the cleaning.

Then there was the fact that the Order met every few days, and Ron was never allowed in. Often, as he lay in bed at night, he thought about how he'd helped Harry to save the Philosopher's Stone in first year and dealt with that bloody Death Eater, Peter Pettigrew, in third year. Even if that wasn't enough to join the Order – and he had to admit it wasn't much – Harry had done all of that and more, up to and including _dueling You-Know-Who himself_, and he hadn't even been allowed to come to Grimmauld Place.

In fact, since Ron and Hermione had been forced to keep quiet about _anything_ that was going on here, Ron was pretty sure Harry didn't know about the Order at all. Which was just bloody _stupid_ considering how Harry was probably going to be the one to kill You-Know-Who in the end, wasn't he?

"Ronald, will you _pay attention_?" Hermione hissed at him. They were currently dusting – yes, dusting, and yes, the Muggle way, since it was still summer – in the library. The library was one of the creepiest rooms Ron had ever seen; most of the books were old and either written in mysterious languages or completely unmarked, and more than a few had odd stains that appeared to be some kind of bodily fluid (usually blood). Ron was dusting the windows, since he refused to touch said books.

"Pay attention to what?" he said in response to Hermione.

"You're not even dusting! And you're not _doing_ it right, either, here…" Hermione came over and made as if to show him how to dust properly, but Ron pushed her hand away.

"I was just thinking, all right, Hermione?" he muttered. "I can do it myself." He refrained – quite wisely, he thought – from calling her out on her bossiness. It was just one of those things you had to deal with when you were friends with Hermione, right?

Hermione huffed and returned to the bookshelves, but at the sound of voices in the hallway, both of them froze. They'd long since come to the decision that if they couldn't send Harry any information in their letters, they could at least find out as much as possible to tell him when Dumbledore finally let him come to Grimmauld. Unfortunately, this conversation was not one of the good ones.

"– if you would just stop being such a _prick_ –"

"Padfoot, honestly. It's none of your business."

"It _is_ my business! What about what we had going, doesn't that mean _anything_ to you?"

"You spent twelve years in Azkaban! Your level of immaturity is simply _astounding_…"

The voices, which had belonged to Sirius and their former Defense professor, Remus Lupin, faded. Ron looked away from the door and found that Hermione had a very annoyed expression on her face.

"Those two!" she snapped. "I hope they resolve whatever it is they've been arguing about before Harry arrives. They've been at it for ages!"

"Sounds like a lovers' spat to me," Ron commented. When Hermione gave him a startled look, he shrugged. "What? That _is_ what it sounds like!"

"But they're both men!"

"So?"

Hermione stared at him for a long moment, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. Then she shrugged as well and turned back to the bookshelves, leaving Ron feeling as though he was missing something.

Ah well… at least she wasn't bugging him about the dusting anymore.


End file.
